After thoughtful review we have made the difficult decision to close the Haitian Elder Program operating at the Catholic Charities Yawkey Center/Haitian Multi-Service Center in Dorchester.

Catholic Charities provides crucial services such as adult education and workforce training, child care, basic needs and immigration legal services to over 10,000 Haitians in the greater Boston community. This annual support to the Haitian community exceeds $1 million in Dorchester’s Haitian Multi-Service Center alone, serving 5,000 Haitians. The Haitian Multi-Service Center will remain in operation. Catholic Charities also offers extensive services for the Haitian community across other regions of the state.

Our goal in making this change is to ensure that the funding we provide to support our Haitian community is spent as wisely as possible. By letting other well established and successful programs take the lead with elders, we can continue to fund other programming where we are the only provider for these families. We have been working closely with the 16 affected clients we serve each day as well as local social service agencies to ensure that elder services are available and accessible to any and all of those currently enrolled. Catholic Charities has invited several of these social service providers serving the Haitian elderly to the Haitian Multi-Service Center and many have reached out to the current Catholic Charities enrollees to offer their services.